American Healthcare vs. American Soccer

Over the weekend Mitch McConnell told David Gregory that "we have the finest health care in the world." This is pretty standard Republican boilerplate, and it got me to wondering.

Has any Democrat ever said that "we have the worst health care in the world"? Why not? Sure, technically, you'd need to say "industrialized world" or some such, but aside from that it would be pretty accurate. Certainly more accurate than McConnell's formulation.

So why not say it? I can think of a few reasons. (a) Americans don't like to hear anyone telling them they aren't the best at anything. (b) It would require politicians to explain how it is that other countries do healthcare better and cheaper than us — and Americans really, really don't like to hear that France does something better than us. (c) Since most Americans have health insurance and get adequate care, it's a tough sell. (d) Democrats agree with McConnell.

I suppose there are other possible reasons too. But why nibble around the edges? Republicans are willing to straight out claim that we're the best, even though there's virtually no metric in which this is even remotely the case. It's as laughable as saying that America has the best soccer team in the world. So why aren't we willing to stretch things a bit and flatly say that virtually every advanced country offers better healthcare than we do? What's so hard about that?